Puerto Rico Now At 'French Revolution' Stage

Puerto Rico has suffered a lot in the last three years. Well ... a lot more than they have suffered since they became a US territory (a fancy way of saying colony) since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. But things are starting to get revolutionary in Puerto Rico.

After Puerto Rico was hit by a late December string of earthquakes ranging from 4.5 to 6.4 in magnitude, and as
thousands sleep outside, Puerto Rico was rocked by the discovery of a warehouse full of supplies by a citizen journalist in Ponce.

This discovery of much needed supplies collecting dust and expiring in a warehouse since Hurricane Maria in 2017 caused Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced to
fire the emergency director and two other officials. But one of the fired officials, Puerto Rico's former Housing secretary Fernando Gil Enseñat, claims that Vázquez Garced knew about the unused aid, which prompted renewed calls for her resignation and protests not seen since the events leading to former governor Ricardo Rosselló's resignation. Now they've got a guillotine!

And in a case of deja vu, seems Governor Vázquez Garced decided to head down the same disastrous path as her predecessor. First she admitted she knew about the warehouse full of aid but blamed others for not distributing it, something CBS reporter David Begnaud points out is ludicrous:

Vázquez Garced sat down with Begnaud for an interview on Saturday trying to explain herself, with mixed results. In it she stated:

She knew about the warehouses of aid

She said people in government (other officials) must act and she can't do everything.

She will announce a plan to provide housing for earthquakes evacuees

She says school will resume in earthquake zone by February

She won't resign

The people most affected in the southern part of the island have what they need and "they feel happy where they are, they treat them with love."

But, if you believe in a deity, it was that last statement about the earthquake victims that was immediately disproven by Mother Nature. After the interview, Puerto Rico was hit by a
5.0 magnitude earthquake and heavy rains in the southern part of Puerto Rico where many earthquake evacuees are staying in government tent shelters or outside on their front lawns because of aftershocks. The floods particularly are hitting areas where the "happy" tents are located!

And it's only gotten worse. This was how people "slept" Saturday night:

The people, thanks to the reporting of CBS's Begnaud and Puerto Rico's own local newspapers, have become aware of the disastrous local response that makes the horrible federal response worse.

So much so that even the mayor of Ponce, María Meléndez, is no longer counting on the governor for anything more than a call to celebrity chef José Andrés's non-profit World Central Kitchen.